August 14, 2023
To Mayor Weinberger and City Councilors,
We are writing as past City Councilors, white anti-racist accomplices, and open-hearted humans. We see a clear and problematic double standard in the City’s treatment of Former REIB Director Tyeastia Green.
While we served on City Council and in subsequent years, we have observed multiple examples of questionable behaviors by City of Burlington department heads (mostly white men) and by the administration itself. Rarely, if ever, have we seen the degree of scrutiny and investigation that Tyeastia Green is experiencing. The contrast is stark and unwarranted.
A few examples [sources cited at end]:
Former CEDO Director Peter Owens left his position with the City of Burlington in May, 2016. Owens was already scheduled to step down from his role as CEDO Director, a position that is instrumental in setting the vision for Burlington’s affordable housing policy, but resigned early in response to a scandal he was involved with in San Francisco. Owens was the landlord of 100-year-old Iris Canada, an African American woman he was working to evict from her home of over 50 years. The eviction was halted by a San Francisco judge, scrutinized by the President of the SF Board of Supervisors [the equivalent of Burlington’s City Council], and widely covered by the media. On February 10, 2017, without notice and while she was in the hospital, Owens removed all of Canada’s belongings and denied her and her family access to them. This included medical supplies, family photos, ID cards, her deceased husband’s artworks, and more. No formal critique or inquiry into Owens’ actions, values, or past work was supported by the City of Burlington’s administration.
In April of 2023, the community of Burlington learned that our then acting Chief of Police was the subject of a formal complaint after using a “menacing tone” and “threatening to cuff” a medical provider at the University of Vermont Medical Center. This happened as part of a dispute about police presence during the provision of medical care to a victim of gun violence. The existence of the complaint was withheld from the City Council for months, and from the public as it considered a ballot initiative regarding police oversight, even as it was referred to Vermont’s Criminal Justice Council for further investigation. This followed a January 2023 revelation that Burlington police officers had refused calls for service, citing a staffing shortage, then engaged in a lucrative private contract to provide neighborhood security to a Burlington homeowner’s association. For these incidents, the City of Burlington’s administration accepted apologies and a professed willingness to do things differently next time around. In June of 2023, the acting chief was appointed to a permanent position.
In January of this year, the Vermont State Auditor completed an audit of Burlington’s Lakefront Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district. The audit showed “years of sloppy record keeping” and financial mismanagement, while noting that Burlington has made “millions of dollars of mistakes.” Much of this was attributed to “poor recordkeeping, key staff turnover, and slow adoption of strategies recommended by the City’s own auditors…The City’s errors were so numerous and of so many different types, it is clear a new process is required to reduce the risk of significant errors in the future.” The result was well over a million dollars of debt to the state’s education and TIF funds. According to the Burlington Free Press, the city’s response letter noted that, “The city’s budget is flexible enough to handle unexpected expenses like this because of its unassigned fund balance, which always must contain 5-15% of the city’s annual operational expenses” and that “Even with the withdrawal of money to resolve audit findings, the city’s fund remains above 10% of its expenses.” To our knowledge, there has been no broad public accounting for how the City intends to rectify the issues raised, or to avoid similar debt outcomes in the forthcoming state audit of the downtown TIF district.
The accusations against Ms Green in the review memo from Sheehey, Furlong, and Behm PC appear to be emblematic of a Citywide culture, not of any personal shortcomings. In fact, in the review recommendations, it states clearly that the City needs to clarify and become more consistent in several policies and practices. It seems that any faults found in the process of putting on the 2022 Juneteenth (many of which occurred after Ms. Green’s departure) were quite in alignment with the way other City events and projects have been handled and with the larger concerns raised regarding overall financial management in the state audit.
We have so much work to do as a city. We’re coming out of a pandemic with record overdose fatalities and worsening statistics around homelessness. Burlington has been struggling with difficult conversations about how to ensure community safety. We cannot understand the administration’s decision to spend precious time and resources on an investigation that seems so out of alignment with previous responses and creates further division in our community at a time when we need to come together.
We stand in solidarity with the Black women of Burlington who are speaking out against this. We believe that this inquiry was an act of supremacy and a clear result of racial bias. This may be hard to understand for those who have internalized supremacy, as many of us have. Perhaps you can at least see that there is a double standard at play.
With great concern,
Selene Colburn (Ward 1 & East District City Councilor, 2014-2017) and Rachel Siegel (Ward 3 City Councilor, 2012-2015)
Sources consulted:
Zach Despart. “Burlington CEDO Director Resigns.” Burlington Free Press, April 15, 2016. https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2016/04/15/burlinBurlington CEDO director resigns
Tommi Avicolli Mecca. “Landlord Moves All of 100-year-old Iris Canada’s Belongings From Her Home Without Notice While She’s in the Hospital.” San Francisco Bay View, February 23, 2017. https://sfbayview.com/2017/02/landlord-moves-all-of-100-year-old-iris-canadas-household-belongings-from-her-home-without-notice-while-shes-in-hospital/
Courtney Lamdin. “Burlington Chief Threatened to Arrest Doc Who Was Treating Gunshot Victim, Hospital Says.” Seven Days, April 6, 2023. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/burlington-chief-threatened-to-arrest-doc-who-was-treating-gunshot-victim-hospital-says
Patrick Crowley. “After revelations of a complaint against Burlington’s acting police chief, some councilors question another appointment.” Vermont Digger, April 7, 2023. https://vtdigger.org/2023/04/07/after-revelations-of-a-complaint-against-burlingtons-acting-police-chief-some-councilors-question-another-appointment/
Courtney Lambdin and Kori Skillman. “Crime Pays: Burlington Police Officers Land a Lucrative Side Gig.” Seven Days, January 24, 2023. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/crime-pays-burlington-police-officers-land-a-lucrative-side-gig/Content?oid=37443326
Katherine Huntley. “Report: Burlington TIF accounting led to over $1.2 million in mistakes.” WCAX, January 23, 2023. https://www.wcax.com/2023/01/23/report-burlington-tif-accounting-led-over-12-million-mistakes/
Lilly St. Angelo. “Burlington owes over $1M as audit shows errors in handling of waterfront project funding.” Burlington Free Press, January 26, 2023 https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2023/01/26/burlington-tif-audit-mismanagement-of-funds-leads-to-over-1-million-owed/69836410007/
Patrick Crowley. “State audit of Burlington’s tax increment financing finds ‘millions of dollars of mistakes’.” Vermont Digger, January 23, 2023 https://vtdigger.org/2023/01/23/state-audit-of-burlingtons-tax-increment-financing-finds-millions-of-dollars-of-mistakes/
State Auditor Doug Hoffer. “Auditor Doug Hoffer Releases Audit of Burlington Waterfront TIF District Administrative Complexity, Staff Turnover, and Poor Recordkeeping Contributed to Millions of Dollars in Mistakes.” Press Release, January 23, 2023. https://auditor.vermont.gov/sites/auditor/files/documents/Burlington%20Waterfront%20TIF%20Press%20Release.pdf
Selene Colburn 